Demon Hunting
by HayashiOkami
Summary: The Shiki try again for their safe haven-this time in a remote village entombed in the unforgiving mountains of Hokkaido, closed off from the rest of the world for three months as the winter winds rage. They might succeed, if they can figure out why it is that these villagers still fear the gods of old, and why they worship cats above all other creatures...
1. December 26, Festival

**Demon Hunting**

"_We are not afraid of the dark or the monsters that may reside within it. What we are afraid of is our own blindness, which the darkness reminds us of. The monsters just give us an excuse to despise it._"

**December 22**

The shrine was dusty and alive in its silence almost every day out of the year, a quiet beast dozing in the sunlight between a copse of trees. There were days when even the leaves seemed reluctant to stir.

But twice a year, just twice a year, that beast woke from its slumber and a grand, lively festival swept the dust and leaves from its depth and lit the musty interior aflame with chants and dances. They were the only events Shirano Village was known for in the outside world, the only thing the village took pride in besides the flowering Paulownia's that were its livelihood.

Even at such a late hour when this countryside village was swathed in an impenetrable darkness, the gleaming town barely stronger than a firefly's light, he could see the vague lines of the Paulownia trees on the other side of town. But at this time of year, of course, it was impossible to see the scraggly, emaciated branches reaching into the night.

A shiver passed through him as he turned away from the village, the warm glow from the festival lights fading the deeper he went into the forest behind Shirano Shrine. The winters in this region were so unforgivingly bitter it was a wonder that the trees survived at all. He had just left the shrine's grounds but his shoes were already soaked through to his socks.

He drew the scarf tighter around his neck and mouth, doggedly trudging through the snow until all that remained of the festival were the sounds of music and drunken laughter. A sharp winter wind buffeted his face, forcing him to squint as he plodded on.

The terrain here was steep, the undergrowth oppressed by the snow slippery and knotted, and it only grew worse the further one traveled from the village. It was unsafe to venture any further in the dark and the snow.

Mothers would forever warn their children against playing in the forests surrounding the village, especially in the snow and at night, but there were those who never listened. The forest was not the scary place they said it was, as he knew well, but even he wouldn't push his luck in the winter.

He picked through the snow until he found a familiar alcove created by a dry groove in the earth, guarded by a fallen tree. It was slightly damp and dusty, but sheltered him from the snow well enough if he curled up and pressed his back against the far wall. It was better than getting frostbite from standing in the middle of the forest all night, at any rate.

The sounds from the festival still rang in his ears. He was unsure if he could still hear them or if they were shadows of a memory, but the warmth alone was enough to relax him. During the winter these forests were so terribly silent, as if the snow had absorbed all the sounds.

He just had to wait until the festival passed without falling asleep. Sleeping out here in the middle of the winter was fatal, especially if no one came looking for you. The cold would snatch anyone's life away without remorse or grandeur.

Outsiders never understood the severity of the cold like the villagers did, even though they all had heaters just like the rest of the world. The cold was a specter that had followed them from the distant past, a villain from the times when the elements snatched away as many lives as they created. It wasn't just a nuisance to them even if hardly anyone ever froze to death anymore.

He kept his thoughts busy wondering at the smallest, most insignificant things. He thought about what he wanted to eat tomorrow, about math formulas, and about how he would avoid the outsiders for as long as possible.

It was a busy time in the middle of a dead, frozen season. Outsiders were always drawn to their village by the bright festivals it hosted and those who had moved away often visited during this time. Some of those outsiders and returnees stayed and lived here, some forever, some for a week or a month at a time.

Shirano Village knew what it was, but some seemed to think it was much more than that. Most of the outsiders would leave by springtime, probably because there were very few cherry blossom trees in Shirano. Most of the space was devoted to the Paulownia, a tree few modern city folk had ever heard about.

He didn't like hearing those people talk about the lands beyond these mountains, so he rarely left the shrine where he lived except to attend school until most of the visitors had left. It was impossible to avoid them completely, though, when he had to run errands around town now.

Come to think of it, didn't he spend more time in the forest than in town nowadays? His solitary life was starting to become ridiculous, he thought, but somehow he didn't have the heart to change it.

"I'm such a shut-in," he mumbled. A light laugh barely heavier than the air rose over the faint music from the festival. He didn't bother looking for its source.

"At least you admit it. This whole village is like that; it's trapped in a time long past."

It was such a familiar voice, such a familiar laugh, that he was never alarmed no matter where he heard it. It had been with him since he was a child, perhaps even before he knew how to speak. Hearing it never brought him anxiety or shame or anger.

"Aren't you also trapped in a time long past? Or rather, aren't you someone who 'time' has forgotten?" he mumbled into his scarf. It smelled warm, of men's cologne and home cooked meals, of a life in a house somewhere in the village below.

"You're only ever so cheeky with me," the voice mused belatedly, a hint of amused disappointment touching at the edges of it. "Why are you out here, anyway? It's December; you'll freeze to death."

He pushed himself further into the alcove and kicked his shoes off, warming his feet the best he could with the thick gloves on his hands. Fire coursed just beneath his skin, painfully hot and sharp. If he had any feeling in his hands at all, he would have been able to tell that his feet were as cold as the snow.

"It's not like I have a choice. They don't want me around and I don't have anywhere else to go if I want to avoid all the tourists here for the festival," he said with a frown at how his words trembled and quivered with the cold. "Besides, I shouldn't have to tell you. You should know already; it's the same every year."

"Want me to come with you, Tsukasa?" Despite how cold he realized his body had become, he almost wanted to laugh at the proposal. He held it in, reasoning that it would expend too much energy. "No one has to know, right? It's the night of a festival, too, which means it's possible for me."

As nice as it would be to have someone to enjoy the festival with for once, or at least have someone to walk through town with him, he knew it was a bad idea. This was a small village where everyone was neighbors and intimately acquainted. They all knew full well that Tsukasa never spoke with anyone he was not required to speak to, and certainly not with outsiders.

"If you want, you can go. There are tons of visitors tonight, so no one will notice," he offered despite the fact that his friend had never once shown himself in the village in all the years he'd known him. "I'd like it if you stayed, though. I don't want to fall asleep."

Snow had started falling in a soft, lazy current no stronger than a child's breath. When he woke in the morning it will have covered every surface in the village in a blanket of white and blue, from the naked branches of the Paulownias to the red gates leading up to the shrine. It was winter break, so thankfully he could stay home and didn't have to risk descending down the long flight of stone stairs leading to the village.

"Tsukasa?"

"Yeah?" He blinked blearily, nibbling at his dried and cracked lips.

"This isn't a good winter; everyone's been saying that. So, you shouldn't visit that valley anymore until the snow melts, okay?" The wind started howling into the night, slicing through the tress and obscuring the voice speaking to him, but he could hear the tightness in it regardless.

"But…that's…boring…" he mumbled, unable to stop the tremors attacking his body. He reluctantly reached for his shoes, now ice cold, and pulled them on. "It should be fine as long as it's during the day."

There was no response from his friend. For all he knew, he could have left entirely and Tsukasa would never be able to tell no matter how hard he strained his ears. The appearance of sneakers and dark pant legs just off to the side of his little hideaway told him that his friend hadn't gone far, after all.

"It's a bad winter," he repeated, his voice forever airy even when his physical body was within sight. Creating almost no noise, he leaned down to peer at the human boy huddled against a wall of frozen earth and reached out to tug at his sleeve. "Come, you'll freeze to death."

"Asake, will you come with me after all? To town, I mean," he shivered as he crawled his way out, painfully stretching his limbs as his friend ushered him down the mountain. The snowfall was light, at least; it would yield a few centimeters, no more than five, by morning.

He asked expecting a flutter of a chuckle and a polite refusal of "I'm sorry, I can't after all", so when Asake accepted after a long moment's pause he stumbled and nearly fell down a particularly sharp incline in the earth. He considered the possibility that his friend was joking and would retract his words any minute now, but he never did.

It was unlike Asake to joke, even if he did tease sometimes, but he had never stepped foot in the village for as long as Tsukasa had known him. He always hovered at the very edge of the forest, his feet just brushing against the road, but he never stepped out from the cover of the trees.

The village was a place for humans, he said, and the forest was a place for beasts and spirits.

If his face wasn't so frozen, he would have smiled as he considered where to go with his friend. It might be safer if they wandered around the Paulownia fields instead of in town, since most of the villagers abandoned the trees for the night in favor of the festival held at the shrine. There were no crowds and so few lights that it would be hard to distinguish two people wandering around if anyone saw them at all.

"Thanks, Asake, I mean it," he said over his shoulder as he shuffled down the last steep incline that leveled out onto the stone paved road just outside the shrine's gates. Snow tumbled off his sneakers as he stomped his feet and glanced about, eyes lingering on the warm red and golden hues emanating from the shrine above. Shaking his head, he motioned for his friend to step out onto the road from where he stood wrapped in shadows and falling snow. "It's clear. There's no one around now."

One side of Asake's face was always shrouded by his hair, which was a dark and unrelenting brown. Tsukasa had never seen all of him, as silly as it sounded, until that night when Asake swept aside those locks of hair and tucked them behind his ear. They fell back into place almost immediately to obscure one eye, but the moment had passed and Tsukasa had seen it happen.

Asuke stepped out onto the road, his feet as silent as the falling snow.

* * *

- Well, Shiki are going to interfere in this little village's life soon enough...I'm not sure if it will be entirely original Shiki or Sunako and Seishin trying to redo Sotoba in another village. What do you think?

- I really wanted to try my hand at this universe despite not regularly writing vampire stuff. But as usual I'm not so good (or confident) at characterizing canon characters well. This is mostly an original cast, unless I decide to drag some of the surviving canon characters into it.

That being said, I'll be taking any suggestions for secondary characters (villagers/Shiki/outsiders) if anyone wants to volunteer some.


	2. December 27, Daze

**Demon Hunting**

"_They say every journey begins with a single step, but they're wrong. Every journey starts in the past, with a thought, an idea, a history of its own._"

**December 27**

The festival ended well into the night when nearly half of the population was drunk or deliriously tired. Tsukasa crept into the shrine through a side door, slipping past villagers plundering along trying to clean the place as visitors filtered out. His room, thankfully untouched, was still and cold when he crawled inside and curled up beneath the blankets piled atop his futon with a relieved sigh.

The wind whistled outside, battering the old shrine and the forest of evergreens clustered together against the cold landscape, but at least inside it was only a sound.

An icy silence reigned over the shrine when he woke the next morning. The number of modern appliances installed were minimal, so the building never emitted any unnatural humming or mechanical creaks, but that might have made it even eerier on such a clear day. All he could hear were muffled birdcalls and the occasional lump of snow losing its balance and falling from the rooftop.

He had no parents to usher him from bed and judging by the commotion last night, no food in the kitchen to eat. As he pressed his face against the warmth of his pillow and curled up tighter, he considered skipping breakfast. All he had to do today were chores around the shrine. The village women were unusually good at cleaning up after a festival, so he might even have some free time in the afternoon.

There was no rush. The bright, clear sheets of sunlight striking through the shoji screens didn't beckon him from bed anymore than the prospect of a cold house with no food did.

Tsukasa eventually rolled out of bed and dressed for the day, nursing a sore tendon in his ankle that he must have strained when he was wandering around the forest last night. He waved off the chores he should be attending to that morning and picked the heavy shovel up from its resting place by the back door.

"I want beef bowl today…" he muttered to himself as he shoved the wallet containing his weekly allowance into a pocket. Last night he had considered ramen noodles, but that was probably because he had been freezing to death out there. No, today he definitely felt like the beef bowl served at the _Taiya_, a small family owned restaurant. It would be nice to eat good today, considering all he'd eaten on Christmas were instant noodles.

First he had to clear a path to the outside world, though. With a reluctant sigh he opened the door, squinting into the sunlight as he stepped outside, dragging the shovel behind him. It made repulsive sounds against the stonework beneath the five or so centimeters of snow that had accumulated on the ground, just as he predicted.

The untouched field of snow shimmered in the sunlight, the gentle shadows a cool blue hue. Even the striking red gates were edged in white and the village below was a series of little snowcapped mountain peaks.

When he had shoveled enough of the stairs as not to kill himself descending them, he pushed the shovel aside and shoved his hands deep into his pockets, wincing at the painful fire lacing through his palms. Maybe he should have worn gloves.

Many years ago when his usual caretakers had fallen ill with the winter flu, the owners of the _Taiya_ brought him three meals a day from their restaurant. In the morning it was always fresh and at noon and in the evening they gave him leftovers they would have otherwise eaten themselves. If not for that week and a half of small boxed meals from a warm, inviting family owned establishment, Tsukasa would have never stepped foot into the _Taiya_.

Sometimes he missed the taste of that food, so he push aside his misgivings and distaste for the small restaurant atmosphere and ate there alone, at a table for two. No matter the occasion, he always ate quickly and left almost as quietly as he had come.

This morning the restaurant had only one other customer, a neighbor who was most likely in to chat and nibble rather than eat a formal meal. Hunched over his beef bowl, which was as rich and warm as expected, he idly listened to their loud gossip while blowing on his food to cool it down.

"I can't believe how many people stayed this year," Kayano Mori who owned the restaurant said with a loud guffaw and a sense of awe. His voice was exceptionally loud even when there weren't any customers to scream over, but to Tsukasa's knowledge it had always been like that.

"Ha, some of the kids are begging to go back already, like my son!" exclaimed the other customer, Seta Nobuo, in reference to those who moved to attend university somewhere else in the country. "Looks like they'll be stuck here for a while, though. It's gonna be a bad winter."

Tsukasa started in his seat, the ends of his chopsticks colliding against a glass of water with a shrill _clank_. He ducked his head in apology before he could see the two mens' curious stares and hurried to finish his food, almost choking on a few grains of rice as he shoved the meal in his mouth.

Asake wasn't speaking nonsense after all. It really was going to be a bad winter if even the forecast said so. The weather stations usually tracked the snowstorms here carefully, since they held heavy consequences if the people weren't warned properly. A single heavy storm could completely section off the village from the rest of the world for up to four months at a time. It had been years since one that severe hit the area, but there were never any guarantees.

It was best just not to think about it.

Tsukasa slipped out of the restaurant after he left his payment on the table, turned right, and continued up the empty, sloping road that led to the middle of town where there was probably more life than on the outskirts. Okay, he could have gone to the store closer to home, but that one didn't have his favorite brand of instant red bean soup, so he reasoned that it was worth the trip.

The convenience stores were as modern as any other in Japan, complete with automatic sliding doors and a working microwave that Tsukasa used often. The older women behind the counter usually spared him a displeased look when he walked out without buying anything, but he ignored them. There wasn't a microwave in the shrine's kitchen, for whatever reason, and he wasn't about to ask for one either.

Plucking packages of instant noodles, rice balls, and whatever else he could heat on the stove from the shelves, Tsukasa moved through the brightly lit aisles with a sense of purpose. Only visitors to the village browsed the shelves, so they were easy to spot as he worked his way through the small store. There was no one remarkable, just dedicated tourist types who would probably be gone come spring.

Ah, there was a couple who might stay, though. It became easy to tell who was antsy to leave and who had become enchanted by the quiet country lifestyle out here over the years. A few of his schoolmates were speaking to a girl with longer, wavy hair who he had never seen before. How unfortunate for her, he thought, having to move into this quiet village. Even normal countryside villages couldn't compare to the isolation up north.

"It's really quiet here and you'll get used to it in no time," a girl reassured the new transfer student with a soft, patient smile. "The convenience store is probably the only really modern things around here, though, so you'll want to come here often. A lot of other places are just a mix of the two or…"

There was no avoiding them, so Tsukasa gave it up and walked out from the cover provided by the rows of shelves, depositing his food on the counter as he dug around for the wallet. The coat was a bit baggy on him and a little worn at the seams, but it was warmer than most of his clothes and had deep pockets that allowed him to store anything, although all he really carried around was the wallet.

"Oh, he goes to our school, too! He's a year younger, I think. Hey, Tsukasa! It's Tsukasa, right?" the girl called out, eliciting a small wince from the boy as he parted a few bills and slid them across the counter. "This is one of the new transfer students, Honda Ayako. She comes from Tokyo, can you believe it?"

Tsukasa turned to the side enough to greet them, inclining his head with the reluctant sort of smile he flashed all the adults that had come in and out of his life so far. Something deep within him stirred, something he thought he had long since smothered and silenced as a child gazing curiously out over the village, past the mountains and forests surrounding it.

The transfer student herself was also giving a halfhearted smile; a shaky chuckle escaped her mouth as little puffs of breath. Someone had entered the store, sending a cold blast of air inside that ruffled their hair.

"Actually, it's the suburbs of Tokyo…" she said in vain as the girl who was leading her around, likely her new neighbor, continued her perfectly pitched narration of the village's points low and high. The transfer student seemed a bit at a lost, torn between listening intently and glazing over at the influx of information.

Tsukasa took the opportunity to grab the plastic bag proffered to him and leave the store before someone had the bright idea to involve him in whatever tour they were giving. If he was unlucky they would stop by the shrine later, anyway, so he didn't feel bad.

Just as he was out the door and about to turn left, the shrine's gates two pairs of bright red sticks in the distance, a voice called out to him.

"Tsukasa, where were you last night? You're always at the shrine, but I didn't see you at all," said the boy, a classmate Tsukasa's age who was the girl's little brother. Tsukasa shrugged in response, feeling he was under no obligation to tell someone _that_ oblivious as not to notice the fact that Tsukasa had _never_ been at any of the festivals in all their years of living. If he attended at all, he was a shadow lingering on the edge of the crowd.

"I was around," he offered. "Why?"

"Oh, because someone said he saw you around the fields last night. I just thought it was weird, you know, since you're always at the shrine _and_ it was the night of the festival!" After a moment's pause to chuckle alone, the boy picked up in a less jovial tone, "He said you were with someone unfamiliar."

That displaced stirring in his chest from before tightened as a flare of indignant rage and no small amount of beastly worry consumed him in a flash before melting away, leaving only a residue of violence behind. The other boy took a precautionary step backwards, a startled flicker passing through his eyes, likely a ghost of childhood memories, of old fairytales and legends that spoke of monstrous demons that came to feast upon children at night.

No one believed it was true anymore, of course, except for very young children. Still, that primal fear of monsters - of the unknown and the unpredictable - remained.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't go anywhere near there, let alone with a stranger," Tsukasa said in a tight, short manner. Before the boy could protest he turned away and hurried off down the gentle incline back to his home.

If this winter was to be as bad as everyone anticipated, maybe he should hibernate in the shrine for the rest of the winter. There was no need to leave for anything besides food and school, and everything about this village was looking up to be troublesome. He would miss taking walks outside, but it was a worthwhile trade.

There was one place he still wanted to go, though. To that valley embraced by the mountains and reclaimed by the forest, to the skeletal remains of what was once a village nestled in this remote region of the land much like Shirano Village itself.

They called it Ootsuka Village. Legend said that the gods had burned it to the ground in a cleansing, purifying inferno centuries ago. It might have just been a legend after all, since there were no signs that a village had ever existed in such a place except for the lone stone bridge in the middle of the valley.

Whatever it was, most people had forgotten about it by now. It had never been on any records, every last wooden building had been consumed by the fire or by time, and the last mythical survivor of the incident would have died in anonymity long ago.

But Tsukasa still wanted to go, like it was an adventure.

* * *

- Well, there are certainly references in here to other works of anime/manga, see if you can find them all. I decided not to go with honorifics for this story, how does it sound?

- It may seem like a pretty nice town and everyone's content, but well, this is coming from the pov of an introverted boy who lived in a shrine alone for his whole life. :p I'll be getting to the Shiki stuff soon.

- gyudon = beef bowl, a rice dish topped with sautéed beef and onions


	3. December 31, Fowl

**Demon Hunting**

"_Many secrets stay hidden forever simply because no one thought to ask._"

**December 31**

All the roads around the village were sheathed in icy casings that glinted in the sunlight, blindingly hazardous to one's health. The volunteer sanitation department was working its way around the village this morning, spreading thick grainy salts across the paths to melt the ice that had formed overnight as an inevitable result of the dropping temperatures.

They would reach the shrine last in their rounds and Tsukasa couldn't wait that long to leave his home today. Dr. Miyahara, his pediatrician since childhood and the head of the only hospital (although it was so small it was more of a high scaled office) in the village, had requested to see him today. It could be a general checkup, since he hadn't had one since he was five or six, but somehow he doubted it.

It definitely had something to do with the influx of deaths in the past few days. Mostly due to exposure or unattended winter colds, according to the current gossip. So far only the elderly and the young were susceptible, but that was to be expected. Tsukasa didn't see the point in traveling all the way around the village to the hospital - it was nearly an hour and a half hike on foot in this weather - but he couldn't afford to miff his physician.

Tentatively peering down the long flight of old stone stairs sent long shudders down his spine. He made a detour for the untouched snow banks that had piled up around the shrine as he shoveled the pathways out every time it snowed. Only the top layer was that fine, powdery white as light as flour; the rest was solid and impacted.

He skidded down the long slope leading to the main road, a strip of black bordered on either side by metal railings and overgrown grass. Everything now, of course, was covered in snow. The dark asphalt had been cleared by snow trucks a while back, but now they were just layered in thick, uneven sheets of ice and grimy snow.

Tsukasa focused on the ground in front of him as he continued along the outside railing, hands buried deep within his pockets and a pair of sunglasses perched atop his head. It would be a long walk, lonely and cold. The worst part was the heat and sweat the sun and his coat generated. As unbearable as it was, it was probably worse to take off the clothes in this weather.

It was supposed to snow again soon. Just in time for New Years, although it might be far from cozy and festive if everyone's weather predictions were to judge by.

No matter; it didn't change his plan to sit around the house all day with cups of hot chocolate and ignore any chores he had to do.

"I want spring to come soon…" he murmured into the dark mahogany scarf wrapped securely around his neck, watching the white swirls of his breath escaping into the air. He could wish all he wanted and it wouldn't change the fact that this never ending cold and ice had three more months left to live and torment them.

* * *

Dr. Miyahara was fond of ducks. No one else in his extended family, one of the oldest in the village, shared his same predilection for the water fowl. Tsukasa didn't know whether or not his house was decorated with duck memorabilia like his office and exam room were, but he supposed it didn't matter in the end.

The ducks were intensely creepy. Not all of them were realistic renditions of the animal; he had a healthy collection of bright rubber ducks of all sizes, decorum, and themes as well. And all of them stared at the exam table, scrutinizing the patient with dark, beady eyes.

Tsukasa squirmed and received a light smack on the arm for his behavior. But it wasn't his fault. The ducks were _staring_.

His classmates had decided long ago that if even Tsukasa, the vaguely odd (_disturbed) _and distant (_creepy_) boy who lived all alone in the shrine on the mountainside thought Dr. Miyahara was just plain weird, then they had a right to think he was, too.

The middle aged man held his head still by grasping him painfully by the chin, fingers digging into his skin until he was sure it would bruise. He jammed the cold otoscope into his ears in quick succession and flashed the other instrument across his eyes, leaving him seeing white vibrant streaks when he blinked.

"Is is a cold that's going around?" he asked the doctor. Despite his quirks, Dr. Miyahara wasn't an unkind person. He'd helped Tsukasa more times than he could count or remember, far more than most others in the village ever had.

"Does the common cold kill that many people so quickly?" the man countered before Tsukasa was even finished speaking. He motioned for the boy to take off his shirt as he reached for a package of fresh bandages and disinfectant.

"So it's a flu? Or a sickness? It's not that cold yet," Tsukasa commented as he shivered and pressed his bare arms close to his chest. The doctor impatiently waved for him to remove their presence and moved in, pressing fingers wrapped in cold latex against his ribcage and abdomen until he flinched. Sure enough, a yellowing bruise was apparent there.

With a sharp click of disapproval the doctor unwound a roll of bandages and snipped it off with surgical scissors. "We're not sure yet," he admitted. "We'll probably find out in a few days. Now stop squirming! And what else is hurting you? You've always kept it to yourself, ever since you were little."

"Ankle," Tsukasa murmured unhappily, even though he knew the man was right. Tsukasa was a quiet child who never misbehaved in school, a solemn boy who never spoke unless it was demanded of him and who would never bring himself to complain about an injury. He'd managed to go an entire week before a teacher noticed a sprained ankle he had, once.

Dr. Miyahara ordered one of his assistants to drive him home and that was the end of that. Neither of them protested and neither of them spoke to the other on the short ride back to the shrine.

When he'd managed to hike his way up to flat ground without slipping and breaking a limb, to Tsukasa's dismay there were visitors crouched near the offering box in thick winter coats.

It was his responsibility to care for the shrine's grounds and call others for help in maintaining what needed repairs. As far as job went, it was simple and easy, a routine he had long since grown accustomed towards. But his other responsibility was to act as a tour guide of sorts to the rare few visitors who decided to stop by during the village's peak seasons.

Swallowing his dread, Tsukasa walked up to the couple and cleared his throat. The rough sound broke the calm silence apart, startling the man and women from their crouched positions. Smiles instantly graced their faces, though, as if they were amused and humoring him.

"Oh, would you like a turn?" the woman asked, shifting over as she extended an arm out to encompass the whole area under the alcove.

He shook his head and sucked in a deep, burning breath of fresh air. "I live here. Do you want a tour? I give them, if you want one, if you don't mind."

The two wore twin expressions of gentle surprise. They must have heard about him by now from the other villagers - heard about the young, slightly _off_ boy who lived in the shrine alone. He could see a small flicker of recognition in their calculating eyes, but didn't know their opinions of him.

He supposed it didn't really matter, though.

"Oh, it's perfectly fine. We'll show ourselves around. We've just moved in, so we look forward to being your new neighbors!" the woman smiled brightly as they rose from the ground. Her lipstick was a pale, pale pink and her cheeks were impossibly white despite the cold. "We read so much about Shirano before we decided to move here. The village goes way back, doesn't it? Is it alright if we ask a few questions?"

Tsukasa nodded for lack of anything to say. He wanted to go home and curl up with a blanket, hot tea, and a book, maybe listen to the radio. Or he could watch TV as he so rarely did.

"There's a lot of cats here, I've noticed," said the husband. Tsukasa could see the wedding bands gleaming on their fingers. "They don't seem to belong to anyone in particular, either."

"It may not be publicized, but the village worships cats." Tsukasa's words were soft, smooth, but altogether uninteresting and unremarkable, as his teachers often commented. "We let them roam freely and many villagers feed them. They say the cats descended from the first ones our ancestors brought with them to keep the fields clear. One of the gods they worshipped was the cat goddess, Sakatama."

An irrational surge of anxiety seized him by the throat, shook him violently, and spat him out by the wayside as the couple pondered over the tale. Tsukasa desperately tried to shake the deep, primal fear that swirled within him and the sense that those eyes of molten gold were watching him still, across the centuries and generations.

Asake was right. This village was trapped in the past, just the same as Asake's timeless form. The mountains that never changed and the village it had claimed - all of their inhabitants were the same.

"Excuse me? Excuse me?" called the woman politely. And hand waving in front of him snapped Tsukasa from his daze. He inclined his head apologetically and refocused on the real world.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Oh, I just asked for your name, dear. You look about my daughter's age, you see. Her name is Honda Ayako. I'm Atsuko and this is my husband, Jiro."

He nodded. Right, names he could do. There was nothing hard about that. Nothing, if they didn't push him for answers he couldn't give, that is.

"I'm Tsukasa; I'm fourteen," he told them, carefully leaving out the fact that he had met their daughter the day before. She probably never mentioned him. Maybe she didn't even remember him in the sea of faces she must have been introduced to. That was fine by him.

"I see, Ayako is fifteen," the woman said pensively. A moment later and the couple were saying their goodbyes. They disappeared down the treacherous steps muttering about where they should introduce themselves next, their voices echoing until all that was left were the birds in the forest twittering into the frosty air.

Tsukasa sighed and headed inside for a warm cup of instant tea. He had to boil water on the stove first, which would give him just enough time to change out of his winter apparel and figure out what to do with the rest of his day. There were a few chores left to do around the shrine's grounds that should get done before the snowstorm set in.

"Right, that snowstorm…I wonder if it's really going to be that bad?" he muttered to himself as he set the kettle on the flame and began yanking off layers of clothes. He already knew the answer instinctively, without having to think again for even a moment. Never mind the weather station's prediction; Asake was never wrong about such things.

In fact, the forest had been unsettled recently, too, always muttering about such bad tidings late into the night. It kept Tsukasa up sometimes listening to the voices floating upon the air as he laid curled up in his futon.

He gingerly touched the neat bandages wrapped around his arms and avoided the bruises on his chest and midsection the best he could. The one good thing about snowstorms was that it meant no visitors for a while.

There was always school after that, and while he didn't exactly enjoy it, nothing bad ever really happened there. He did his work, stayed quiet, and went directly home.

It was predictable and easy, just like how he knew almost the exact amount of time it would take for the kettle to come a boil. There was nothing complicated about it.

* * *

- A big thanks goes out to those who are reading this. :)

Mari: Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the review. :3 hehehe we'll see about that later (the fire). As the chapters go, there should be more hints about where this village is exactly.


	4. January 2, Storm

**Demon Hunting**

"_Maybe it's only in the dark that we can truly see._"

**January 2**

Tsukasa watched the lamp flicker, spark, and die.

Simultaneously all the electricity in the village would have shut off, plunging it into a misty haze the dark, cold color of slate. Most of the power lines were hidden beneath the earth, but the village regularly experienced power outages anyway. This far north it was inevitable.

He reached for the candles and lighter blindly, flinching at the flare of molten heat that seeped into the wick and grew into a steady flame. The wind lashed against the shrine office building where he lived, the cold penetrating the thin walls easily, but at least the wind and snow were locked outside.

Tsukasa curled his legs up and hugged them, gazing at the ring of orange cast by the candle's light. If he left the flame unattended it could catch fire and burn the whole shrine down, but he didn't want to waste the flashlight's batteries. It was too early to sleep, too dark to read or clean. During such nights he usually listened to the howls outside his door, but tonight it was quiet.

The wind sighed plaintively, swallowing up all other sounds and monsters that lurked in the dark. His eyes burned, but he didn't want to leave the comfort of the flame, the comfort of light in a darkness so complete it threatened to weave itself into his mind.

He was cold, fingertips numb and bare toes digging into the tatami mats. Everyone else would be cold tonight, too.

They had others to spent the time with, though, family to whittle the hours away with. Asake usually filled that hole in his life, sitting with him in the dark perfectly comfortable and at ease as they chatted in low whispers and listened to the snow.

Sometimes Asake would let Tsukasa lay his head in his lap and he would pick at the boy's hair, cold fingers brushing against his temple and forehead. They would talk about everything and anything that came to mind no matter how unpleasant the memories might be. In the middle of a storm, even those memories were wiped from the face of the earth. Or, to be more accurate, they were buried under layers and layers of snow and suffocated to death.

But Asake wasn't here this time. In fact, Tsukasa had yet to see his friend since the night of the festival. It wasn't unusual for him to disappear for long lengths of time without notice; he always appeared again eventually, returning as quietly as he had left. Tsukasa had no right to ask him to stay or to call upon him when he wanted company.

Asake had made such an omen out of his prediction of bad weather coming that Tsukasa was sure he would make an appearance this time, though. He retreated into his ball and eyed the flame as it drifted here and there, flickering into distorted shapes for a moment before straightening out again.

He did wish that Asake would come at his request sometimes. It was awfully boring alone. Not to mention the ayakashi stirring in the world just beyond this one, the ones moaning into the wind, creating a chorus of omens Tsukasa could not comprehend.

"It'll be a bad winter," he repeated into the dark. If he concentrated hard enough, he could have sworn that he heard something reply in a whisper. But it could have just been his imagination.

* * *

"Damn this weather," Miyahara Osamu muttered as he and his staff shuffled about with candles and flashlights. He'd seen many storms in his life and this one certainly wasn't one of the worst, but all storms were annoying by nature. He had to cancel some house calls and the patients that were here when the power went out had to stay for their safety.

He cursed the gods as he and a nurse wheeled a catatonic patient into another room where they had a battery operated heater running. It seemed that the string of recent deaths was some sort of epidemic, although it was medically baffling. The only other option left to consider was extremely unlikely. This many people died of the elements each year throughout the whole country, let alone in the span of a single week.

In the past, it might have been possible. It might even have been likely that a good portion of the population would not live to see spring, but these weren't ancient times anymore. Many simple diseases were able to be combatted by new medicines, treatments, or were eradicated through simple hygiene.

Furthermore, the causes of death didn't coincide with exposure or any flu or colds that might have claimed the lives of the young or elderly if left unchecked.

Miyahara Osamu tried to be a rational, scientific man, but after a certain number of decades he'd learnt that it was impossible having been born into this village. There were a certain number of superstitions even he believed in to some extent.

When there simply was no other explanation for why their village had never seen a single crop failure for centuries or why that boy in the shrine reported to see spirits, spirits anyone could see if they hung around the shrine long enough, one just had to turn to the supernatural.

"Get the generator going," he snapped at a young man who simply worked as a secretary. The employee scrambled away, bumping into a nurse. He hastily apologized and disappeared down the chasm of a hallway. "And someone fix the connections quickly. Try to see if we can make outgoing calls."

He had to check, just to be sure, before he started turning to the gods for answers. A small village doctor might never have encountered something like this before, but perhaps others had. He hoped.

The alternative was much more daunting.

Miyahara hadn't seen a medical mystery since he left this town to attend university in the city. After that, his life had been ruled by logic and science, while his boyhood memories remained clean and mystical, always engulfed in the illogical.

No, that was wrong. He'd seen one such mystery since he returned to this village. Fourteen years ago a woman had a baby. He'd signed the death certificate marking it as a stillborn, written a name, and had the proper documents filled out.

He'd also held that baby in his arms and quivered as it stared him in the eyes, perhaps weak and sleepy but otherwise fixated on the doctor. Its eyes had a strange coloring, which made little sense since its parents could both trace their ancestry to the beginnings of this village. There had been little mixing of blood here, let alone foreign blood.

If this was something like that, something out of his childhood fantasies, then he had no idea how to fix it. He knew something was terribly wrong, terribly off about those puncture wounds…

It was consistent with the fangs of a Japanese mamushi, but none of the symptoms matched. The hospital was equipped with the anti-venom and none of it had worked on any of his patients. Since the mamushi was rarely fatal with treatment, he'd had no other option but to cross the snake off the list.

And that left an epidemic. Or something unnatural.

"Should we but putting them all in the same room?" asked a nurse.

Miyahara gave a ragged sigh. "If it's an illness, we haven't found out the mode of transmission. Nothing we do to them seems to improve their conditions permanently or even temporarily, so it's fine for a while."

Outside, the storm raged. In the darkness monsters thrived, real or imagined. Miyahara remembered the stories of old, the ones that told of ancient times when spirits and demons also roamed the land and terrorized humanity. And of the gods they prayed to, the gods worshiped by all.

* * *

It was an odd little village, certainly, but one trapped in the confines of tradition nonetheless. There were aspects that made it different from every other backwater village they had collected brochures on and yet in some respects it was exactly the same.

If Seishin had to name something that made the village weirder than usual, he would have to say it was the cats.

The cats were everywhere, but particularly by the river that stretched through the village and was covered in a layer of ice by the time they moved in. None of the villager seemed upset or annoyed by the cats' presence and even fed them scraps occasionally. He would look out the window and see children petting the lazy creatures as they bathed in the sunlight.

Not a single brochure had advertised the cats that came with the village so irrevocably, though. They were just _there_, like the birds twittering between the trees and the insects that would be buzzing about come spring.

And the cats apparently didn't like Shiki. Most animals were wary or seemed unappreciative of their presence, but at least the cats were so antisocial that it never struck their new neighbors as strange that the cats hissed as they passed by. It was harmless, if a bit strange.

Seishin watched night fall and swept out of the house into the snowstorm to set into motion the plan that had to work. If it didn't work here, he wasn't sure if they would ever have another opportunity to make that dream come true. They couldn't make the same mistakes as what happened in Sotoba.

If they acted quickly, took out the most important and influential figures in the village, then its occupants would be left to stumble about in the dark, deaf and blind to the dangers around them. There wouldn't be a chance for some bright one to piece together the irregularities and inconsistencies and throw away reason.

No way to escape, no way out until the plan was complete - that was part of it.

"This is okay, isn't it? We're just trying to find a place to belong, aren't we, like humans did long ago? This place…should understand. It should understand survival. It isn't wrong to want to live. It isn't a crime."

They could do it, this time. Shirano was smaller than Sotoba and much more remote. Not many outsiders even visited per year, and none would be suspicious as long as they completely replaced all the villagers by then.

Seishin lowered his head and squinted against the fierce snow and wind swirling around outside. It was bitterly cold, but nothing that would cause him permanent harm. He was used to the cold, anyway.

It was a bit harder here than in Sotoba, but he supposed it was a bit safer this way anyway. There wouldn't be any suspicious villagers suddenly moving into empty houses, only appearing at night, and the constant snow in this village always buried any traces of upturned dirt. He had to speak to those few who had risen so far, though, because tonight was of the utmost importance.

Shirano was completely cut off from the world. The snow would make it impossible for anyone to enter or leave it until someone dug out the main roads once the storm ended. It wouldn't regain power for quite some time, either, which meant that they couldn't contact the outside world.

He had to do something about the doctor first, though. That person was the most threatening, the one with outside knowledge who lived in a village with a propensity for traditions and superstitions since childhood. The mix of those two was what led to the destruction of Sotoba, the end of Sunako's dream.

But, perhaps, it wasn't just her dream anymore. A few years had passed since the events in Sotoba and nothing was really alright even now with anyone who came out of that village alive (or as alive as they could be), but Seishin had sworn to himself to follow her until the end, whenever and wherever that may be.

Ironically, this place could probably be considered to be at the very edge of the world.

* * *

- The Japanese mamushi is one of the most venomous snakes in Japan. That being said, only about 10 victims die per year although 2000-3000 are bitten in a year.

- This chapter is a bit jumpy, but I wanted to include the Shiki's pov's in it.

Mari: Thanks so much for reviewing! And I'm glad I managed to stick some suspense in here. :) You'll find out the answers in time.


	5. January 3, News

**Demon Hunting**

"_There are some truths you don't tell anyone about for fear of giving them a form, for fear that they may come true from the realization alone._"

**January 3**

The entire village shone in the early morning light, the barest fragments of ice crystals glimmering across every untouched surface, even in the cool blue shadows lurking around the border between the forest and the village. A few people were out and about trying to clear the main roads and fix the power lines under the swelling sun. Despite the biting cold, they sweated underneath their heavy coats.

Tsukasa breathed a ragged sigh and resumed his never ending march through the knee-high snow, dragging a useless shovel and a thick canvas bag behind him. Any others his age were undoubtedly curled up beneath their covers or lounging around with their family while the adults cleared the roads outside. There was no point in shoveling the house out if there was nowhere to _go_.

And indeed, the village was sleeping under a veil of silence. Occasionally he heard birds twitter in the forest or the shouts of the maintenance teams from afar. Other than that, it was just his own labored breathing and heavy footsteps to keep him company. And that shovel, of course, etching a deep trench behind him as he walked.

He sorely missed the warmth of his futon and the misty sunlight that filtered into his room. If not for the urgency of the phone ringing in the office he could have stayed there the whole morning, idly drifting in and out of consciousness. But ultimately he had been obligated to crawl from his bed and answer the call, knowing that it was only his guardians who ever called him.

They were guardians only in the loosest sense of the word, the people whose duty it had been to care for him as a child. Those four were comprised of some of the most influential people in the village, Dr. Miyahara among them, and although they were a far cry from family Tsukasa knew he had an obligation to answer their summons. It almost always required him to leave his home when he had adamantly resolved to stay indoors and this time was no different.

The heavy, often impacted snow sometimes damaged the small shrines arranged around the village roads and it was his duty to fix them regardless of the weather. There wasn't much he had to do, truthfully, aside from keeping the shrine from collapsing in on itself. No one complained if dust gathered in fine blankets over every uninhabitable surface. Boredom was the only reason why the outside was in any way neat and well swept.

Fixing the broken shrines, though, was always annoying. Crouching down beside one partially submerged in snow, he began to gather the splintered pieces and shoved the unsalvageable parts into his bag. There were a few heavy Jizo statues in there along with the wooden shrines, to his incredulity. While the states were worn and weathered from spending countless years exposed to the elements, it took more than one harsh snow to break them.

Well, that just meant more work for the craftsmen in the village. He was sure that they would be glad to construct new statues and shrines for lack of any better business.

"That's still the fifth one I found today, though…" he mumbled uncertainly as he placed a wooden beam into the bag and brushed away the splinters. The small roadside shrines were built to be durable and some had been mended just last year. He considered not reporting the full extent of the damages to Tezuka, one of his guardians and the Chief of Police, for fear that the man would punish him for his negligence.

Fixing the shrines was Tsukasa's job, after all. The craftsmen only constructed new ones if he put in the request.

But it was hardly his fault the storm was worse than usual. Exhaling a shivering, cloudy sigh, Tsukasa pushed himself to his feet and picked up the shovel and bulging canvas bag. If he had any hopes of covering a decent amount of distance before noon, all of this pointless lamenting had to stop.

The number of damaged shrines and statues he took inventory of grew alarmingly high as the morning inched along the sky, thrusting the brilliant sun up around noon just as he was heading back to the shrine. It wasn't unusual to find that a few had broken beyond repair, but he thought this was a record amount (for as long as he had lived, at least). If the snowstorm really had been that bad, he would have expected more buildings in the village to be damaged.

Glancing out across the shopping and residential districts, Tsukasa could spot the spidery black branches of the Paulownias in almost perfect formation.

"Was it the ayakashi…?" he voiced aloud to himself as he turned away, stepping under the broad red gate into the shrine's grounds. It wasn't unheard of for the spirits and demons to play tricks on humans occasionally, even if they mostly kept to themselves. Although that still didn't quite make sense…

"Tsukasa! Where have you been?" demanded the broad figure that had abruptly entered his field of vision as he turned. Beside him was the tall, thin form of Shirano High School's principle, a man named Sanuki Takeo. Both had their brows drawn tight, although the principle offered him an uncertain smile.

Tsukasa took a quick, hasty step backwards and bowed at the waist, a flurry of apologies escaping before he could even produce a coherent response. The canvas bag was heavy in his arms, bulging oddly from the contents within. He gestured to it as he set the bag down.

"I was just fixing the shrines like you told me to," he said without malice. There was no use in acting defensive around the man who provided him with a home, an education, food, and whatever small amenities he desired. "Though, there wasn't much to fix."

"What do you mean?" asked Tezuka sharply. The chief set off at a brisk pace, peering into the contents of the bag with a noise of surprise. "They _all_ broke? There's no way…and no one we know would be stupid enough to do this…but, we can save that for later. There are issues more important than a couple of broken statues at the moment."

He exchanged a tense glance with Sanuki and returned to fix Tsukasa with a hard, level stare. It wasn't harsh enough to make him flinch, but he shuffled uncomfortably all the same, ignoring the hunger gnawing at his stomach and the chill working its way into his bones.

"Dr. Miyahara is dead."

Tsukasa tipped his head to the side curiously for a moment, as if he had heard completely different words slip from Tezuka's mouth. Perhaps his lack of human interaction was starting to affect his perception of others. How strange, was his first thought, because he had certainly heard wrong.

"He was murdered sometime last night. A bloody mess; the hospital's in chaos. No one can imagine how, seeing as he and his staff have been working twenty four hour shifts. They should have noticed if anyone snuck in. The snowstorm last night was so bad I can't imagine how anyone managed to leave their house. But he is certainly dead regardless. Do you know anything about this, Tsukasa?"

Hearing his name jarred him from the lovely, muddled reverie that had muffled his senses and his rationale. Overhead the sun gleamed down upon the shrine in a sharp, unforgiving blade of light that blinded him as he worked the chief's words around in his mind. He wanted to back up more, but the edge of the stone steps crept up on him, dangerously slick from the ice and snow encasing them.

"I told you the boy wouldn't know anything," Sanuki said in a placating tone that went unnoticed by the chief of police. Tsukasa could barely make out the dark line of his figure, but beyond the man was the broad shrine building layered in dust and snow. He tried blinking away the bright splotches in his vision as Sanuki added, "Tsukasa, please step away from the stairs."

"I _know_ he didn't kill Miyahara, Takeo. Don't be ridiculous. What I want to know is," here he paused abruptly as if something inexplicably perplexing had just occurred just beneath his nose, leaving a strange taste in his mouth, "what I want to know is whether or not he's _seen_ or _heard_ anything in the past week. Anything at all. The doctor was still unable to explain those deaths up until his untimely end. But we all know-"

Tsukasa shook his head sharply as his vision wavered against the stones sheeted over with condensed ice and snow. The words would not come, no matter how many of them wished to be born into the world. His hands no longer felt cold and he feared that if he looked up, they would reveal this all to be one badly concealed lie.

The ducks surfaced in his mind before the image of the eccentric doctor who had taken care of him in those times when no other wished to even touch him. Their dark, rounded eyes stared upon him from faces of varying colors, shapes, and sizes.

"No," he finally said, practically spat, at the man. "I, no, nothing - it's been - quiet. He - no one - said anything. I…I don't know. I'm sorry."

Tezuka breathed a groan of frustration that emerged as erratic puffs of air, but he didn't push the boy for answers he could not give. Sanuki moved to guide him away from the edge, truly concerned that he would step off to his death if he continued to waver there uncertainly, driven by the wind if there was any to be had.

Tsukasa flinched when the man's hand brushed across the back of his shoulder; he hastily scrambled away. He brought his own hands up to his face and pressed his scarf against his lips. It was cold despite the blaring sun. That was why his lips were quivering and his hands were shaking.

"If you hear any-"

"N-no, the…he doesn't speak to me much anymore. Kirotaka, that is," Tsukasa stuttered like he hadn't stuttered in broad daylight for a very long time. He understood the sentiment as fear and anxiety, but the emotions were displaced. Despite his severity, Tezuka had never given Tsukasa a reason to fear him. Even now the expression on his face was more frustrated and exasperated than angry.

The cold tore at his throat as he sucked in a desperate breath of air and his eyes almost watered, though from the sun or the wintery breeze he was unsure.

There was a faint murmur in the shadows, to all others merely a brush of the wind against the trees or the hollow groan of branches burdened by snow, but Tsukasa heard the low murmurs for what they were. He blinked harshly a few times in rapid succession and fixed his eyes on the mountain's incline. The ayakashi stirred but made none of their usual appearances, as many would normally lurk around the shrine even in this weather.

If he noticed at all, he didn't acknowledge it as suspicious, but rather as a relief. The ayakashi were irritating nuisances but most of them weren't really a threat to people…

"…The ayakashi have been quite lately," he muttered as the two men were turning to leave him to his shrine repairs. At this rate, they might forgive him if he put it off for a few days. Who would be in the mood to work after that…?

Tezuka turned to him with a sharp, "And?"

"They told me it would be a bad winter," he said as he leaned down to pick the bag of stones and wood splinters up. With a shudder he straightened and started for the shed behind his home. He didn't have it in him to turn around, not with his eyes burning inexplicably and his hands trembling as he held the canvas tight. "But I don't think an ayakashi would kill a human being like that."

"And why not?" Tezuka asked in a strident, critical tone.

Tsukasa bit his tongue until he was sure it would bleed. Asake's slim, cold fingers against his temple, brushing over his forehead and running through his hair came to mind. The quiet tones they spoke to each other in and even the ominously whispering voices had been as much a part of his childhood as the playground and boisterous laughter had been to other kids.

But ultimately he said, "Because we are loved by the gods. And we are hated just the same."

The anxiety and fear that had seized him earlier suddenly dawned upon him as he heard the men walk away. Because Tsukasa didn't believe his own words that an ayakashi was not responsible for any of the incidents in this village. Perhaps not Miyahara's death - as ayakashi rarely killed in a _human_ manner - but all of the other senseless deaths this winter.

Just because they were already cursed did not mean they were immune to the whims of nature and the gods.

Understanding this, Tsukasa trembled. When they could not find reason behind these incidents, he knew exactly where they would turn.

* * *

- Forgot I had this chapter as a buffer.

- Ayakashi: Japanese spirits, demons, ghosts, etc. A catch-all term, encompassing more than just basic demons and spirits.


	6. January 6, Wards

**Demon Hunting**

"_It is impossible to live without knowing others - to live and truly be alive without human contact."_

**January 6**

The snow seemed to have halted in its tracks momentarily. Since the doctor's death only five centimeters had fallen, although the gleaming, brilliant sun did nothing to melt the mounds of hard, impacted snow left behind. The roads were clear enough for life to resume with relative normalcy, barring a few irreparable and obscure paths that were unpaved and treacherous on a good day.

That meant school was back in session and entering the last trimester. Graduation loomed on the horizon; with it came his final year of junior high school, not that Tsukasa or any of his classmates, really, were too excited over the prospect. In Shirano, graduating from junior high to high school was barely an improvement; the two buildings were practically attached, just one gateway and a few meters away from each other.

The academic buildings themselves were dreadfully similar, both the same washed-out shade of grey that might have once been white, with the same number of dingy, grimy windows looking out on the street. If not for the vague signs labeling the buildings and the obvious divide between the students' heights, no one would ever be able to tell them apart.

Tsukasa ambled up the salt strewn sidewalk to the building on the left - the junior high - with his head turned down against the wind, feet crunching granules against the concrete. A few brave souls lingered around outside before the warning bell rang, but it was generally ten degrees warmer inside and most preferred crowded hallways to becoming freezing icicles. Tsukasa preferred it, too, despite his solitary nature.

This morning was oddly subdued, though. The usual air of leftover holiday excitement was absent, replaced by halfhearted chuckling and muted conversations that were impossible to discern as he passed through the halls. The younger children were shushed and the older students scolded each other for raising their whispers past accepted levels.

Tsukasa wasn't the most socially competent person around (or at all, he suspected), but even he had to shift uncomfortably in his seat and wonder just what had gotten into everyone around him. As students filtered into their homeroom, a dimly lit classroom labeled 2-B, it became more and more prominent. Everyone was muttering, eyes as downcast as Tsukasa's on a normal day.

He caught words like, "sickness", "epidemic", "tragic", and "murder" filter through the air and no longer had to wonder anymore. As he sunk into his seat with an uneasy, cloying sensation in his stomach, the teacher entered the room and eased the class into silence with a few hand motions. The class representatives led everyone forward in the daily role call with none of their usual enthusiasm.

It was only then that Tsukasa noticed the empty seats. He blinked and glanced around the room, grateful that he was forever cast away to the back of the room where he went largely unnoticed. There were six people absent, which might not have been so strange if not for the pained looks on everyone's faces, like they had suddenly been reminded of a dead pet.

Tsukasa had crawled into bed every night since that snowstorm, thought of the ducks and their beady eyes, and the shattered statues gazing up at him with empty prayers. He knew he wore the same expression then.

"Poor girl, her sister died just last night," a girl near him muttered to her friend while the teacher jotted something down on the chalkboard. "No wonder she didn't come to school."

"It's just weird," another said, from the seat in front of Tsukasa. "There was nothing wrong with her. My little brother was playing with her and their friends at the festival. We're neighbors, you know."

And yet another said in a voice loud enough to be shushed by the teacher, "Did you notice how many people _moved away_ before the festival? I mean, they had no reason to...the Nishimura's lived here since forever ago, right? They didn't even say goodbye, just up and left. _All_ of their family moved, too. That never happens."

"Look, if you want to point out strange things, we'll be here all day…" In a more hostile tone, the girl who responded spat, "shouldn't you be more worried about everyone dying? Who cares if they moved away? The doctors said the ones who died weren't even sick!"

"That is _enough_," the teacher enunciated from the front of the class, slamming a heavy textbook that wasn't even about the subject she taught down on the desk. "Now, open your books to page one hundred and fifty-four. I'll be in charge of your next class, too, since your history teacher Hashimoto won't be showing up here anymore."

Another wave of murmurs drifted into the air. Tsukasa's gaze wandered over to the windows and the grey, gritty sky that occupied the sky. Perhaps it would snow again soon.

Lunch break yielded no further advancement of the conversations started that morning in class. The chatter had regained some of its usual joviality, erasing some of the unease that had consumed him as he sat in class earlier. Still, this was nowhere near normal. No one was talking about how they spent the blackout during the storm playing stupid boardgames. No one spoke about the fun they had at the festival.

All they were muttering about were those tragic deaths and their grandparents' paranoid and half mad ramblings about how the gods were punishing them for their crimes. It had happened in the past, they claimed, and it was very possible that it was happening now.

Tsukasa carefully retreated whenever he heard that topic come up. He didn't mention that him still being alive meant that the gods had no reason to seek retribution. He didn't correct them and remind them of the stories told about the times when the gods _had_ devastated the village with their divine punishments, sending wildfires and earthquakes and ayakashi down the mountains.

He also didn't mention that Miyahara's murder was much more worrying than a disease they couldn't seem to combat, and that murder was a product of human folly. Someone among them had killed a man and they weren't particularly focused on that (rather frightening) aspect of this whole ordeal.

He wondered when the situation had escalated to the extend of being called an ordeal.

Nibbling at the rice ball that was his lunch, he was too occupied in his wild thoughts to notice the person standing in front of him until a tentative hand tapped him on the shoulder. Starting, he fumbled and nearly dropped the rice ball, perhaps convinced that the person had just been standing with his back to him.

"Um…" Tsukasa mumbled, lowering his eyes as soon as he discovered who had interrupted his reverie.

"You're Tsukasa," the other boy pointed out unnecessarily. He nodded for the sake of the conversation, absently tearing at the plastic wrapper the rice ball had come in. It crinkled noisily over the silence. He tried to remember who this boy was, the one who had bothered talking to him.

He was pretty sure they had never spoken to each other before. When he thought about that enough, he figured it was quite sad, depressing even. They'd only been with the same one hundred and fifty odd classmates, more or less, for their whole lives.

"You live at the shrine, so…" he hesitated. This boy spoke quickly, but it didn't seem to be attributed to nervousness. The words just flowed out so fast that Tsukasa's head was spinning trying to process it all. "My parents are a bit paranoid. They believe my grandparents - you know, all the old folks are saying it's the work of demons or the gods, I'm not sure what's the difference, but they wanted me to stop by your place after school. You know, to pick up...um…"

Tsukasa blinked, "Wards? Prayers?"

"Yes, wards! Those slips of paper with calligraphy on them. You can do them, right…?" He seemed quite relieved to have it all out, a small smile on his face.

Tsukasa nodded again. Well, someone else wrote the calligraphy, but they were effective against most ayakashi, even if a majority of the villagers didn't believe in the ancient myths anymore. There were wards scattered throughout the shrine that regularly needed replacing, from torn and dirtied slips of paper to thick sacred ropes or the statues he had cleaned up the other day.

"Well, my parents wanted me to buy some on the way home from school, if that's okay. I don't know, they don't really work, right? But they want them anyways," the boy laughed shakily.

"They work," Tsukasa said abruptly. The stunned look on the boy's face, earnestly pleading for him to be joking, almost made him want to laugh. When Tsukasa's bland, expressionless face didn't change, an unsteady smile slipped through the boy's confused demeanor. He shuffled his feet and inclined his head with a jerky motion.

"I'll just follow you home, then, okay? And I can get back to my house from the shrine. Oh, but I have to pick up my little sister from school. Is it okay if she comes, too?"

He sounded like he was talking to himself, running through his plans for the day to see if there were any conflicts in his schedule without once pausing to allow Tsukasa to answer. The plastic in his hand crinkled as he shifted, gaze dropping back down to the desk and the worksheets scattered over its surface from the last lesson. All were half done in a lazy scrawl.

When the boy finally stopped he flashed Tsukasa a quick smile despite the clear unease on his face and said, "I'll see you later then. Bye!"

Tsukasa returned to his rice ball, nibbling halfheartedly at the partially eaten mound. He knew that he had known the boy's name at some point in his life, but he couldn't quite recall it now. When they were all in elementary school he still went through the trouble of memorizing his classmates' names, but by now he'd forgotten most of them.

The question itched at the back of his mind through the rest of the school day. It was only once Tsukasa surrendered and accepted the fact that he just couldn't remember that he realized this was the longest time he had given any particular subject this much consideration in months (possibly years). It was a bit depressing, he pondered as he shuffled across the salt strewn sidewalk.

He'd made it to the gates and lingered for a few moments, glancing back and forth between the school building and the path that led back to the shrine. If that boy wanted to buy those wards so badly, he could come around after he picked his little sister up. It wasn't like Tsukasa might be out when he arrived; Tsukasa, after all, was always at the shrine. They didn't have to walk back together.

With that thought in mind, Tsukasa started down the street fully intending on curling up with a mug of hot chocolate and his homework, nestled in the warmth of his blankets. It seemed that all he wanted to do these days was curl up in the safety of the shrine and conserve his body heat for the incoming winter. According to most ayakashi there was nothing wrong with such a plan, but Asake had always rolled his eyes and flicked him on the forehead in jest for muttering his thoughts aloud.

"_Humans don't hibernate, silly,_" he would say. "_Don't act like a corpse before your time._"

Tsukasa pulled the scarf over his lower face, inhaling the warm scent from the fabric with a pensive sigh. Asake was still missing. Well, perhaps missing was the wrong word. Asake had simply chosen not to return to the shrine for whatever reason. It wasn't unusualfor him to disappear for even weeks at a time, but what _was_ unusual was for Tsukasa to have so many human visitors at the shrine.

The boy in his class was certainly not the first to request prayer slips and wards from him, although it was primarily the older villagers who were stopping by or sending their sons or daughters there. This time of the year was a superstitious one by nature, a time of the year when the village was surrounded by the suffocating wilderness that threatened to wipe its very existence off the face of this land.

That didn't mean Tsukasa had to become any more hospitable than he was on a normal day. So long as he was warm and safe in his shrine, unbothered by others due to the abundance of snow and ice coating the roads, he was content. The ayakashi retreated deeper into the forest as well, waiting out the cold with infinite patience. Asake kept him company at night, lingering around the shrine with his usual mutterings and hidden smiles.

Tsukasa didn't make it far before he heard a familiar voice call out to him from the school's gates. He winced, resisting the reflex to turn and respond to hearing his name. It wasn't like many people had a chance to call for him on a regular basis, so when he did hear _Tsukasa_ come from anyone's lips except for Asake's, it usually indicated that someone was displeased.

It wasn't wise to upset anyone who called his name. At least, that was how it normally went.

"Tsukasa, don't go! Sorry I'm late; our homeroom teacher wanted me to run an errand." The boy caught up to him far too quickly, his rapid breaths creating fragile puffs of frosted air as he slowed and snatched Tsukasa's arm up in his own, swinging them around in the opposite direction.

Tsukasa squirmed under his grip, escaping before anyone had a chance to see the sight and create some outlandish, mythical rumor surrounding the incident. Tsukasa might have been a separate entity in the village, a loner who would be easily forgettable anywhere else in the world, but even he was not immune to gossip. People here latched onto whatever they could grasp. They held it and squeezed it until all the life had left it and there was nothing left but an empty husk.

He hugged his schoolbag close to his midsection, trailing behind the boy with his eyes focused intently on the ground even though the salt had melted away the last of the ice that had coated the roads. It was bad enough that he had to walk to the village's elementary school when the last time he had seen the place had been on graduation day.

He didn't want his classmate to constantly tug at his sleeve, attempt to make conversation with him, or grab him abruptly when he grew excited over whatever story he was trying to convey. Tsukasa didn't even remember when the boy had started chattering, only that it was exceedingly boring.

"I don't know, my parents keep nagging me to study hard and attend university in the city, but it's pretty far away from here. I'm not sure I want to go that far. How about you, Tsukasa? Do you want to leave the village? Some of my friends do really bad, but others don't…" The boy sounded conflicted. A frown was on his lips and a worried, distant look in his eyes.

Tsukasa peered up at him and shrugged. He could now see the tall grey school building that rose up above the splintered branches of naked trees and dense firs laden with snow and ice.

"Not really," he muttered, his voice muffled by the scarf pressed up against his nose and mouth. "What would I do? Where would I go? I don't plan on going to university…It's not like living here is bad, right?"

Tsukasa lifted a hand to press the warm knitted scarf closer to his face. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, pushing the thoughts of a world outside this village frozen in time out of his head. There was no need for him to entertain such thoughts, not when the shrine was all that was in his future.

The boy walking along with him smiled, but returned his gaze to the ice strewn sidewalk seemingly deep in thought. The future was always of concern to his classmates, especially as they grew older by the year. Soon they would have to make some major life decisions - whether or stay or to leave, whether or continue the family business or attend university.

Sometimes he was glad that his life was much less complicated.

The path to the elementary school was a fairly straight road from the junior high school, twisting only at times to avoid a thick cluster of trees or raised ground. During the other seasons, once the roads were all clear of snow and ice, nearly everyone rode their bikes around town. Even Tsukasa had one, although it tended to gather dust in the shed due to lack of use.

During the winter it was nearly impossible, not to mention impractical, since a large snow might arrive at any time and entrench the village in its embrace.

Thankfully the road to school was kept clear and salted, so they arrived just in time to see the elementary school kids rushing from the frozen gates, its rungs encased in icicles. Tsukasa allowed his classmate to go ahead and search for his sister while he stayed as far away from the school as possible.

He watched the kids disperse into the village, a few older siblings and the occasional parent arriving to pick them up, but for the most part everyone walked in this town. Few families owned cars if they didn't have a business that required one and there was only a single gas station near the entrance of the village that was usually out of business around this time of the year, given the lack of communication with the outside world.

They were truly an isolated village. He was willing to bet that the other boy knew the families of all their classmates and even all these kids leaving the school now.

Just as he was growing impatient and too cold for comfort, his classmate returned with a little girl wrapped up in a thick light blue jacket. The flower shaped nameplate (one that Tsukasa grudgingly remembered wearing) said _Shiratori Hisako._

The name struck a chord in his memory. Shiratori was the name of that boy who once brought his violin to class and played it for everyone on a day when their teacher was absent. It was hard for even Tsukasa to forget such music that could impress upon the uninitiated in the world of music the talent of the one who played it. Now that he had a name to match to a face, he realized that Shiratori was indeed this boy accompanying him to the shrine.

Shiratori Hijiri, the violin prodigy. There weren't many with exceptional talents in this small village of theirs. A truly talented individual only came around once every generation, or so the saying went. Tsukasa didn't really know if it was true or not, but he did know that Shiratori was exceptionally talented for his age. He would have expected him to carry his violin around with him all the time, but supposed that it would just be downright impractical.

"So what'd you do during the snowstorm, Tsukasa?" Shiratori - the elder - asked behind his shoulder. He was holding his little sister's hand as they walked, the end of an infectious laugh indicating that they had just been bantering like normal siblings.

Tsukasa lifted his head, not that he was paying particular attention to the leftover chunks of ice or uneven ground, and shrugged again.

"Nothing really. What _could_ I do? There was no power." He paused at seeing the look of confusion on Shiratori's face. Just to satisfy him he continued, "I had hot chocolate."

"Oh? Us too! Right Hisako?" Shiratori smiled as he returned to facing forward. His little sister nodded vigorously, her bright yellow hat sliding around until it almost fell off. Shiratori pushed it back into place with a lopsided grin.

The rest of their journey went in a similar manner. By the end Shiratori was carrying his sister until they reached the long staircase that led up to the shrine. The little girl sleepily followed them up with minimal complaint as Tsukasa directed them to the shrine's office building where he resided and where he conducted most of his "business".

"Wow, you live here by yourself?" Shiratori said as they entered through the front doors, kicking off their shoes in the entryway as Tsukasa hastily tossed his books aside and slipped into the office just a few steps down the hall. He could hear the two trampling across the bare floors in their socks, peering past doors that led to empty rooms.

Tsukasa rifled through the piles of wards, signs, and assorted souvenirs that he sold at the shrine during festivals. Most of the supplies needed to maintain the shrine's property was in this room, including sheafs of calligraphy paper, ink, and brushes. The entire office smelled faintly of the dark blackened ink that were used on the wards and prayer slips.

He pulled out a few slips of varying lengths, each meant to expel a specific category of ayakashi.

This one was for foxes and raccoon dogs - the shape shifters. And this one here was for vengeful spirits, another for natural spirits of the forest, and this for the pesky, relatively harmless ones that were simply annoying.

Figuring that should do, Tsukasa stacked them together, wrapped a paper sheath around them, and tucked them in an envelope. He quickly scrawled out an arbitrarily small price on the bottom and rushed out into the hallway before those two destroyed the place.

Maybe he'd offer them hot chocolate in exchange for them leaving in peace.

* * *

Wow sorry for the huge delay. This chapter was longer than the others though, and it's kinda hard to have inspiration strike when it's summer and really hot out...

Thanks for all the reviews!


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